


Down The Road

by joshmeatflint



Series: Down The Road Trilogy [1]
Category: Asking Alexandria, Bring Me The Horizon, Dayshell (Band), Of Mice & Men (Band), Pierce the Veil, Sleeping With Sirens, You Me At Six
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, SHAY AINT SINGLE NO MORE, a little angsty, but dw hes gonna get to oliver soon, chris and matt may actually be cute together, dans a lonely guy, its bromance between them i swear, josh is a stupidly funny but also inspirative drunk, kellin and jack love each other a lot, matt kean yells at everyone to be honest, matt kean yells at james cassells, shay and matt's relationship is based off on this guy and me, shay gets possessed by a demon in the end, theres not a lot of vic povs here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-11 02:18:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 17,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7872049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joshmeatflint/pseuds/joshmeatflint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which you are able switch souls with your soulmate</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kellin Quinn had always been convinced he didn't have a soulmate.

He'd always failed trying to switch their souls, but one thing that kept him going was the fact that he might be the submissive half of their non-existent (yet) relationship.

Just down the road, Dan Flint had never bothered trying to switch their souls. He had been afraid to find out who his soulmate was because 1, if he had found out it was a guy, his parents would not be happy about that, and 2, he was an aromantic. He wasn't interested in any sort of romance or relationships. He'd been in a few relationships before, but he soon realizes he can't really trust anyone in this world. Hell even the only person he trusts is his insane best friend Josh Franceschi.

There's a load of reasons why he calls him insane; one, because he does idiotic things that gets him arrested. Two, because he's was in jail for about a week and he said he enjoyed it there. And three, he screams his own house down. Thank God he lives alone and in a pretty loud neighbourhood.

Dan often wonders how his neighbours haven't complained yet.

Josh has found his soulmate in college recently, his name was Max Helyer and he's literally the only person who can get Josh to calm down. Dan has no idea how they were friends since they were practically opposites, but they were friends and Dan wouldn't change it for the world.

Dan doesn't care when Josh and Max start to make out in the backseat of his car, he doesn't care when they do couple-y stuff in front of him, he certainly also doesn't care if he can hear them doing-the-do in the room next to his in Josh's house. They weren't aromantic (or asexual) like him and he respected that.

~

Kellin sort of hated school.

Nothing bad happened to him at school, he just hated the lessons and what a pain in the ass they were. The only part he liked about school was that he got to see his friends, and goddamn were his friends fun and wild.

The craziest one of his group of friends was the second youngest out of all of them, a small ginger kid from California named Alan Ashby. He was on a similar level of craziness to Josh Franceschi, not that Kellin would know. His soulmate Austin Carlile was basically in the same state of wildness as he was. And then there's Jack Fowler, though the youngest, he's the most mature. The most immature thing he's ever done was when he nicknamed Alan 'he-who-we-cannot-take-outside-for-he-will-embarrass-us'. He never uses it though, unless its to either piss Austin off or he's not lazy to do so.

So that was Kellin's crazy group of friends. They were in the same college fraternity group, so when he occasionally joins in on their antics, Jack would shake his head at them in their frat house as he watches them leave the house. They all know he's never going anywhere with them in public, Jack himself knows that too, so none of them ever bothered offering him to come with them.

Except for when they're going to go to the grocery store, Jack has to come with them.

Jack has this weird (he doesn't call it weird though) obsession with Jet-Puffed Marshmallow Cream. As a revenge for calling Alan names, Austin makes fun of him of his obsession, and then it turns into World War III in the middle of a grocery store. So technically Jack can be wild when he wants to, when he needs to, and with who he wants to. It's rare, but when he does, it's pretty funny to watch.

Speaking of rare, funny things...

Josh rarely gets drunk. Since he's already found his soulmate, he's decided to stop getting drunk or high, hitting on random guys in bars or anything that will ruin his and Max's relationship. He's a pretty decent guy when he does that, but before he met Max, he was a mess, and the only thing keeping him together was Dan.

When he does get drunk though, it's hilarious.

It's like he doesn't care about anything anymore. He just says whatever's on his mind, he doesn't care who hears, he doesn't even direct it to anyone.

But sometimes it's also sad, because when he says anything on his mind, it always ends up in a whole crying/ranting session about how he's always so done with life.

There was one time Dan took him to a nearby bar, he got shitfaced drunk there and Dan had to drive him home since he was still sober. He was in a fight with Max at that time, so he was both sad and angry.

_"I don't know. It's just that he's so stubborn sometimes and then we fight but then I cant leave him because he's my soulmate you know?"_

_"Uhuh," Dan responds, even though he's never had a soulmate. Josh wont remember this in the morning anyway._

_Josh continues, "And then I don't want to leave him because I love him too much for that and he means the world to me. Like, look at him, he's cute and he's hot and his personality is just so perfect. Maybe not to you, but to me he's so damn perfect. I even find his flaws perfect."_

_Dan decides to pay attention to this bit, because this is the bit where it becomes all sad and sappy and shit and Dan just can't not listen to this part. So Dan pulls over to the side of the road and let's Josh rant about how and why he loves Max so much before Josh is tired and he decides to go to sleep._

That was a nice, old memory.

~

When Austin gets drunk at college parties their friends throw, it's always either Jack or Kellin who drives him and Alan back, because Kellin doesn't really like the taste of alcohol, and Jack's never into parties.

When Austin's drunk, he tends to accidentally knock over a bunch of things, which is the main reason why they have to go out and buy cups every month. But when Alan's drunk, he's that sensitive drunk.

If you're driving a drunk Alan Ashby home, it's best to put on his favourite song on, roll the windows down and just sing along and not say anything.

If you accidentally say something that offends him, he gets mad, then cries, then _remembers it the next day_ , then tells Austin, then that's the end of your life.

Austin's the overprotective type of boyfriend. To be honest, Austin's not really Kellin's type boyfriend-wise, but he's Kellin's type friendship-wise, so if Kellin really does have a soulmate, he hoped he wasn't like Austin.

Let's jump into the present.

"Kell. Kell. Kellin. Kellin c'mon," Austin is trying to shake him awake and get ready for class. It's almost 11:00 and their first class they all have together is starting in a little less than half an hour.

Alan decides to pass by and check on how he's progressing, "Is he dead?"

"Hope not. Could you help me get some cold water? Just a little."

Alan's quiet for a while, trying to figure out what he needed it for. When he realizes it's to wake Kellin up, he says 'sure' and heads down to the kitchen.

Jack is on the dining table, drinking coffee, "No luck with Kellin?"

Alan shakes his head no while getting the water, "It's like this everyday, I wonder how we haven't kicked him out yet."

"We love him too much for that."

"True," Alan responds, and then he's back upstairs.

Alan hands Austin the cold water. He dips his hand into the cup and flicks them onto Kellin's face.

No response.

Austin groans and says to Kellin, even though he can't hear him, "I swear to God, Kells. Don't make me do this."

Austin pours the remainder of the cup onto Kellin's face, he wakes up almost immediately after the water comes in contact with his skin and the first thing he says is 'what the fuck?!'

"It's 15 minutes to 10," Alan says in the doorway.

Kellin rubs his eyes, "Really?"

"Yes, so get your lazy ass up and go get ready," Austin answers for Alan.

Kellin jumps off his bed and runs to the bathroom. How long did he sleep for today? He doesn't remember staying up late or anything so he must've slept in.

When Kellin's finished getting ready, he can hear Austin talking downstairs, "Oliver's having a party later, wanna join?"

He was obviously asking Alan, "The kid from U.K?"

"Yeah, Phil says he throws sick parties."

"Sure."

Looks like Kellin's driving two drunk asses home tonight.

~

That night, while Austin and Alan were getting wasted, Dan was at home with a horrible feeling in his stomach.

It was times like this when he just knew something was wrong. It was either he had done something wrong or Josh was in trouble again.

He decides to call Josh, "Josh?"

"Hm?"

His voice is raspy and dry, and Dan guesses he hasn't been staying hydrated or he had been asleep for a long time now.

"Y'alright?"

"Yeah, why?"

Dan sighs in relief, "Nothing, it's stupid."

"Okay then."

"Bye."

"Bye."

Their calls are always short, and most of the times, it's just so Dan's sure Josh is okay and The Feeling wasn't about Josh.

But then what or who could it be about?


	2. Chapter 2

Oliver can barely recall the events last night.

He remembers the neighbours calling the cops on them, he remembers Kellin dragging Austin and Alan out in time so they didn't get arrested, but he doesn't remember himself getting arrested. He remembers Jack bailing him out and telling him that Alan sent him to do so.

If his parents and his brother found out he went to jail, they're gonna kill him.

His younger brother Tom Sykes is the only person Oli's sure he loves. He trusts him more than anyone in the world, even his parents; they came second, then his friends third. He didn't seem like the type of guy to be close to his family, but he was and every person who found out was mildly shocked.

~

Kellin was in a different person's body today.

He was surprised not to be in the frat house, he was surprised not to be on his bed, he was definitely also surprised to see that his reflection in the mirror was of a short, Mexican boy with long curly brown hair down to his shoulders.

_This was his soulmate._

Holy shit, he was flaming hot.

He immediately thought of finding his parents and telling him that this was their son's soulmate inhabiting his body now. But then the thought 'what if his parents are homophobic?' crossed his mind and he suddenly didn't feel so well anymore.

But then why would he switch their souls if he knew they were homophobic? Soulmates wouldn't do that to each other, would they?

Kellin decides he wouldn't be that kind of guy, so he exits the room and finds his parents and (who he assumed was) his brother at the dining table having breakfast.

"Oh Vic! Hi!" His mom says cheerfully.

"Um, hi," Kellin starts awkwardly, "I don't know how to say this, but I'm pretty sure your son switched my soul for his somehow, so hi, I'm Kellin Quinn."

"Vic has a soulmate!" She squeals, "Dear, you have a lovely name, come have breakfast with us. It's a Sunday, so you've got the whole day to get to know us."

Kellin says thank you and takes the seat across Vic's mom. She introduces him to Mike, who was in fact his younger brother and his dad. Then Vic's dad decides to start a conversation.

He starts, "So Kellin, what do you do for work?"

Kellin doesn't have a job, so he just replies with, "Uh, school."

"Shit, how old are you?"

Kellin dies a little inside.

He laughs, "I'm 19."

**(A/N Special thanks to the beautiful @cashbytrash on Instagram for the idea for this bit <3.)**

"Cool, it's just a 3 year difference," Mike says, "Vic's 22."

~

Austin and Alan are both crazy over the fact that Kellin actually has a soulmate after 19 fucking years of being friends and not a clue of a soulmate.

So when the two are on the couch giggling like idiots, he and Jack are having a conversation.

"You found your soulmate?" Vic asks.

"Uh, yeah," His voice is quiet when he says 'yeah', "Let's go upstairs, I talk about this privately."

When they're upstairs, Vic asks another question, "Why privately?"

"Well, you saw their reactions when you told them you were Kellin's soulmate."

"Hm, true," Vic muses.

"His name is Gabe Barham. He switched our souls once and it didn't turn out well. I didn't know who I was or where I was. I was in college though, and I didn't know what to do so I stayed in and I didn't go out at all."

"I bet he got shit for it the next day."

Jack shrugs, "Yeah, but he wasn't pissed. I left my number on his table, so we started talking then. He told his roommate Dan Flint about it, so you and him are the only ones who knew so far. We meet like, every Sunday since his school is just down the road so it's like sneaking around and not telling Alan, Austin and Kellin where I'm going."

"They don't notice the pattern?"

Jack shakes his head, "Too fucking oblivious, those three are."

"Hey Jack! Don't go stealing Kellin's soulmate now!" They hear Alan yell downstairs.

"I'm not! Unlike you," He mutters the last bit.

Vic notices that, "Why not just say it to him?"

"Three reasons, 1, if we do so, its the end of us. 2, it's also telling a lie. 3, afterwards, you have to run for your life and I hate exercising."

"Why is it the end?"

"This has two things. Austin and Alan are gonna start fighting which is an equivalent to World War III, just verbal. And when Austin finds out you lied, he's gonna beat your ass."

"Is this a theory? Or has it actually happened before?"

"Oh, believe me," Jack looks at him seriously, "This has happened before."

_Austin, Alan, Kellin and Jack were in the living room watching TV. Kellin gets up to go get more popcorn, leaving Jack with the two idiots._

_And of course, Jack decides to be immature and fuck around with the Cashby relationship, so he goes like 'Hey Alan, how's your friend...uh, Alex Gaskarth I think.'_

_And then just like that, Austin's bombarding the poor ginger with questions of who Alex was. They avoided each other the next day, and when Jack finally grows the balls to tell Austin that he was kidding, they chased each other around the whole neighbourhood before Kellin had to drive beside them save Jack's ass._

Jack hopes Austin has forgotten that moment.

~

Dan's unwilling to get in trouble tonight.

"Josh! This is fucking breaking and entering, get the fuck out- Max! Get back here! Goddammit guys, we're gonna get caught"

"Chill out, I'm only gonna change my chem grade." Josh says like it's no big of a deal.

Dan sighs and lets Josh do this anyway. It's times like this he really, really hates Josh because he knows for sure they're going to get in trouble for this someday.

"You're on my side right Max?"

Max looks at him sympathetically, "Sorry mate."

Josh has been failing in chemistry. their second year report cards are being sent home tomorrow and Josh doesn't want his mom to worry.

He just doesn't realize that lying to her about his grades worried her even more than telling the truth about her original grades.

Dan cant do anything about it though, so all he does is sit outside the tech lab and watches the hallways.

He's up and running when he hears footsteps coming down the hall.

Fuck, he left Josh and Max.

"Shit," He curses under his breath.

Dan runs down a flight of stairs into the level below him. The teachers barely ever come to the dorm areas, so it was safe there until he's sure whoever it was was gone.

He hears them whistling and fumbling around with their keys as they go down another flight of stairs. Dan decides its safe, and runs back upstairs for Josh.

His stomach drops and his heart plummeted to the floor when he saw that they weren't there anymore.

If he called Josh, the ringtone he's set personally for Dan, Psychosocial by Slipknot, was too loud that it would echo throughout the hallways and alert any surrounding people. But then the bright side to that is that Dan can find out where he is and get to him before anyone else if he's fast enough.

It's almost 1AM and he wonders why the teachers and janitors were still up. He shrugs it off, since they might be on hallway supervision duty on certain days and hours. Dan's tired and lazy, so he returns to his dorm room quietly, careful not to wake up Gabe since he's getting enough sleep for him to be able to spend the whole day with Jack tomorrow.

Dan climbs into his bed, and slept like a baby.

~

Dan doesn't find Josh the next morning. The Feeling's been with him the whole day, so he's in his dorm lying down and barely moving.

He contemplates on going to sleep, but what if Josh was in trouble and he wasn't there to pick it up?

He calls Josh.

It goes to voicemail.

Dan's getting worried now.

Where could he be?

He gets up and decides to go back to the tech lab.

There was police tape on the doorway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cant believe jack fowler is single


	3. Chapter 3

Dan's being interrogated by the police about Josh and Max.

"You were with him near the tech lab last night at around 12:30AM, correct?"

Dan nods.

"Why were you there?"

Dan realizes he cant lie about this one, so he says, "He was failing Chemistry, so he wanted to hack into the school system to change his grades."

"A few minutes after he's picked the lock with a friend-"

"Boyfriend," Dan corrects.

The officer gives him an apologetic look, "Boyfriend, sorry. A few minutes after, a janitor came down the hallway an you ran off, leaving him. Why didn't you hide in the tech lab with him?"

Dan shrugs, "My decisions are based on instinct, not logic. I do whatever comes in my mind first."

He nods in understanding, "Okay, and you had no idea what happened next? What were you doing after you left him?"

"I went back up to go get him, but he wasn't there. I got tired so I went back to my dorm to sleep."

"Okay, since you weren't a witness, and the security cameras proved it too, you're free to go, but if you happen to remember anything or have a tiny bit of information about this case, please give us a call and ask for DI Bourget."

"Yes sir."

**(A/N Shay's last name actually goes well with Detective Inspector wtf.)**

Dan is scared for his best friends life. He is also scared for his best friends boyfriends life. Josh and Max were two of the most important people in his life and he cant afford to lose them.

What if they've been kidnapped?

~

Jack had just recently left. No one asked him where he was going, so still no one knows about Gabe. 

"Guys, something's going on in the college nearby," Austin says.

"How'd you know?" Kellin asks.

"I have a friend there, his name's Matt Barnes, and he says someone's been...kidnapped?"

"What the fuck," Kellin says, "In school?"

"I know," Austin responds, "There were two victims. Both British, both male, soulmates. At around midnight last night someone broke into the school and got them. The police looked at the security cameras, and one guy named Dan Flint was with them."

"What happened to him?" Kellin asks.

"The police let him go, since he didn't actually see it when it happened. He isn't a suspect either, because it would've been impossible for him to be in two places at the same time. The only thing the police are trying to prove is that the kid wasn't the one who told whoever kidnapped them to do so."

"You really should be a detective when you graduate, Aust," Alan states.

"Thanks for the ambition idea."

~

Dan's really scared now.

The police have announced him innocent, but at the same time they've also announced that Josh and Max has been kidnapped. They've called their parents, checking if they have the guys with them. When it's done, they're still missing.

Gabe is out with Jack today, so Dan has no one else to talk to. He knows this one kid though, Matt Barnes. They don't talk much, but when it's times like this Josh or Max or Gabe's unavailable, he goes to Matt.

"Unbelievable honestly. The school's gonna get sued, then it's gonna get a bad reputation," Matt says.

"Chill out, it's not gonna happen, alright?"

How is he telling someone to chill out when he himself is stressing over the fact that his two best friends are gone?

"Hey, mind taking a trip to the college near ours with me? I wanna come by and say hi to a friend. Besides, it's not safe here anymore either. A bunch of kids went home."

"Sure."

Dan doesn't know the big surprise waiting for him there.

~

"Weyhey! Matt's coming over to say hi," Austin cheerfully announces.

"Don't cheat on me," Alan tells him straightforwardly.

"Never," Austin assures him, "I love you too much for that."

"Get a room!" Kellin groans.

"News. This may be 'oh shit' to you, but 'oh hell yes' to me, he's bringing Flint."

When Kellin hears that name, his mind is taken to Oliver Sykes. He figures his mind is telling him something, so he's going to make the two meet today.

"Sorry Aust, you go have a nice time with Barnes. I'm taking Flint to see someone." Kellin says, much to Austin's dismay.

"Fine. Don't cheat on Vic, if you have a feeling you know who his soulmate is, bring him to them, and don't forget Jack took the car, so if you want us to come get you, we cant," Alan reminds him.

"Got it," And then Kellin's out the door.

~

When he sees Dan, Kellin forgets how to breathe.

The guy was _stunning_. He asks himself how he hasn't found his soulmate yet, they must be a vary lucky person.

And that special person just might be who Kellin has in mind.

Dan was the type of hot Kellin would fuck, but not date. Vic wasn't as hot as him, but there was this feeling about Vic that he just couldn't give him up for anyone else in the world.

He guesses that's what's having a soulmate is like.

"Hey, Dan Flint right? I'm Kellin, nice to meet you."

"Yeah, hey Kellin."

Matt's talking to both Austin and Alan. Surprisingly, Alan gets along with the guy well, so he's mentally taking back what he said about Austin cheating on him with Matt.

When they're distracted enough, Kellin initiates his plan. After asking if Dan would like to go walk around campus with him and Dan agreeing, he texts Oliver to meet him at the water fountain in the school garden.

"Where are we going?" Dan asks him.

"Oh, just to see a friend," Kellin responds.

 _Yeah, your soulmate._ Kellin was meaning to say, but that would've been unbelievable.

They make a little chat as they head to their destination. When Dan sees who they're meeting, his whole world seemed to fall apart at the seams because of how cute the guy standing in front of him was.

Holy. Shit.

Dan mentally prepares himself and makes himself look good both physically and mentally before walking over to him.

Dan says, "Um, hi. I'm Dan. Dan Flint."

"Hi, I'm Oliver Sykes" Oliver replies.

His voice is smooth and soft, Dan thinks, he doesn't speak too loudly or too softly for his liking. His eyes are this beautiful shade of brown Dan has instantly fell in love with. And his hair was long and caramel brown in colour and it looked so soft Dan wanted to just hold the kid forever in his arm while stroking his hair.

He'd be blessed if this were his soulmate.

Oliver is squinting at him, then suddenly Dan's seeing himself, and he's in a totally different body.

"Well, hello soulmate," Oliver grins.

Before Dan even replies, Kellins already running off with his arms spread wide in the air screaming 'YEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS' like a madman.

Oliver and Dan switches back to their normal bodies.

"Do you know you're fucking beautiful?" Dan murmurs.

Oliver blushes, "No, but thanks."

"I love you."

"I love you too."


	4. Chapter 4

Dan realizes he can never tell his family his soulmate is a guy after Matt goes to take him home.

He'd been too caught up in admiring the cute as hell Northern boy who just happened to be his soulmate that he had completely forgotten about them.

Now what was he going to do? Lie to them? He knows they're gonna find out one way or another. Run away from home? He's going to be guilty about that for the rest of his life.

Dan sighs miserably at his life. First he lost his best friends, and now he's probably going to lose his soulmate. Goddammit, why is life so unfair to him? He could've had a perfect relationship like Austin and Alan or Vic and Kellin, but _oh no_ his parents _just_ had to be homophobic and despise their son for being who he was.

"Everything alright mate?" Matt asks.

"Yeah, 'm fine," Dan responds.

"You don't sound okay, and I'm a bit concerned, but if you say so, then fine."

They arrive at their school and Dan steps out of the car lazily. He fakes being okay when thanking Matt for the ride, but goes back to being sad when Matt leaves to his own dorm.

He was fucked.

~

Oliver's having a great time rambling on to his brother through a video call about how cute Dan was.

"Tom, oh my God, you should have seen him. Dan was amazing. He's like the perfect guy I've ever dreamed of, not to sound girly and cliche or anything. But holy shit, his jawline was sharp as fuck, his hair looked fucking beautiful, hell even the way he spoke was attractive."

"You sound so gay," Tom shakes his head.

"I am gay. But anyways, you should drive over here, meet Dan, my friends, and you can meet Kellin again."

Oliver knows his brother would come over here for Kellin. Tom liked Kellin, Kellin liked Tom, they were close friends, but not as close as he was to Jack, Austin and Alan.

Tom's eyes noticeably lit up, "I''l be there next weekend."

"Cool," And then Oliver's phone rings and Dan's name flashes across the screen, "I gotta go, Dan's calling."

"M'kay," Tom smiles, then hangs up.

They never said goodbye. Goodbye was a word to say when you're never gonna see them again.

"Hey Dan," Oliver greets.

"Hey love, the schools been closed down for investigation, Matt and I are driving over to your campus. Mind if I stay over for a week or more?"

"Didn't even need to ask. You're my soulmate, Dan. You're welcome any time."

Oli can practically hear the smile in this voice, "I'll be there in 15."

"Okay, is Matt there with you?"

"No, he went to get our stuff."

"Okay. I love you."

"Love you too," Dan smiles, even though Oliver can't see him.

Oliver can tell this is gonna be one hell of a good week.

~

How the fuck is Kellin gonna get to San Diego without missing classes?

Classes have been cancelled until further notice because of the kidnapping in Dan's school. Jack is worried about Gabe, who's at home with his parents. Vic's worried about Kellin, who's trying to assure him that he's fine.

He could fly over there when it's winter break, but it only lasts for a week and that wouldn't be enough.

Vic could fly over here though. His winter break was for two weeks.

"Are you sure you're going to be fine?" Vic asks him for what seems like the millionth time.

Kellin sighs, "Yes, I'm fine. Just fly over here when you got your winter holiday."

"Alright, I'll ask my parents and I'll try getting a flight."

"Vic? Is that Kellin?" Kellin hears Vic's mom's voice float through his speaker.

Then her head pops up on the side of his laptop and she squeals, "You guys are so adorable."

"Mom," Vic groans, clearly embarrassed.

"Oh fine, fine. I'll leave you two to it."

When she leaves the room, Vic goes back into flight-booking mode, "So how long do you want me to stay?"

"Forever," Kellin says simply.

Vic laughs, "Seriously."

"I'm serious. I want you to stay with me forever."

"I wish I could, but I still have to graduate," He frowns.

"Graduate soon please."

"I'll try. I gotta go now, love you Kells."

"Love you too, and don't forget to book a flight.

"I'll never forget."

The video call ends and Kellin shuts his laptop down.

That was it for today.

~

Oliver suddenly has these mildly suicidal thoughts.

It's not about cutting or whatever, it's just him questioning himself whether he thinks life is worth living or not. He isn't saying it isn't worth living, he's confused as to whether he wants to live or he wants to die.

It's like if he kills himself, he'd be disappointing himself and a lot of other people. He'd be disappointing himself because if some miracle happens to him in the future, he wouldn't be alive to experience it. He's gonna disappoint his family for not making it further in life. He'd be disappointing his friends because then there wouldn't be that one kid who throws the best parties ever, and as Kellin put it, that one kid he can always go to to have a great time.

He doesn't want to die, but he doesn't feel like living either. Sure, Dan makes life really enjoyable, but sometimes he just needs a break from life. Theories where people die right after having these kind of thoughts scared him, even when he knew they weren't real. It was because he just _doesn't want to die_ but he's just so sick of the pain and stress life causes him. He wants to be able to die, but then come back to life. He wants to be able to drown himself in something until he doesn't notice anything else around him. He wants to feel the serenity take over his mind and he'll feel at peace for once.

He wants so many things he cant have.


	5. Chapter 5

Today, Dan was going to visit home. He's picked up the courage to tell his parents his soulmate was of the same gender as he was and he doesn't care if they're going to disown him, he loves Oliver and that's that.

He has a backup plan, he always has a backup plan. He's going to go live with Kellin when he graduates in about two years, but if Oli's family approved, then he's living with Oliver.

They know he's coming, but they don't know what's coming.

He's outside the house he's been raised and grown up in. He's ready to leave this place as much as he's ready for the yelling and the hate he's about to receive from his own family.

He gets out of his car, he sees his sister Sarah outside on the front porch waiting for him.

"She smiles when she sees him, "Hey."

"Hi," Dan smiles back for the sake of putting up a good impression of himself, "I've missed you."

"I've missed you too. Now get inside, mom and dad's been dying to see you."

Dan does as told, he gets in his house and is immediately greeted by both his parents sitting in the living room. A few minutes later, it's a mildly awkward family lunch, the table is quiet, and with each second, Dan grows more nervous.

"I found my soulmate," He finally says.

"That's wonderful, what does she do for a living?" His mom asks.

"He's in the college close to mine." Dan replies, making sure they heard him say 'he'.

Dan's father chokes on his water, "Excuse me?"

"Yeah, his name is Oliver Sykes, and he's my soulmate."

He sees the rage flare up in his eyes and he starts yelling about how his son wasn't 'raised this way', so Dan shoots every one of their homophobic comments before leaving the house. They did - as he's expected - disowned him. His sister comes running out of the house shortly afterwards though.

"Dan, Dan. I'm so sorry about mom and dad," She tells him sincerely, and he knows he can trust her, "I just wanted to let you know I fully support you, and if you need someone to talk to, I'll be there alright? I'll always be there."

Dan smiles at her, "Thanks, I'll be back to see you soon, just make sure they're not around when I come over."

"No problem."

They said their goodbyes, Dan's back in his car, and the first thing he does is text Kellin.

_They didn't take it well :/_

He gets a reply back almost immediately.

_Bastards. I knew this would happen. Guess you're with Vic and me two years from now huh?_

Dan laughs lightly as he types in his reply.

_Yeah. Cant hate them though, they're still my parents._

Kellin reads it, but doesn't reply. It's either he doesn't know what to say, or he's too lazy to reply, or he's gotta do something and he has no time to text back. Dan assumes it's the first one as he drives back to Oliver's campus.

~

"Aust," Alan whines as he drags out the 'A' in his name, "It's 2 in the afternoon, get up!"

No response.

Alan's too tired to deal with anymore of Austin's shit, so he climbs in bed next to Austin and starts trying to fall asleep. Austin looks back to see that Alan was already asleep, so he turns to his other side and cuddled the smaller boy in his arms. The two fell asleep with Alan's face buried into Austin's chest and Austin had his arm draped over Alan.

Jack's back from grocery shopping and he accidentally walks into this scene, so he just quickly closes the door and chills out on the couch with Kellin.

~

They wake up at 6 in the afternoon.

"We slept for so long," Austin says tiredly, "And I'm still so fucking tired!"

"Shut up," Alan mumbles, still half asleep.

"Get up."

"No."

"Then I'm dragging your ginger ass out of bed."

He was being serious about that, since the next thing Alan knows is that he's being dragged off the bed and he's hit the cold floor.

Alan decides that he hates Austin.

They decide to get up and get out of the room.

When they reach the first floor of their house, all the lights are out.

"Is the power out?' Alan questions.

Austin flicks a light switch up, the light comes on, "Nope."

Austin notices the mess in their kitchen, but ignores it for now.

"Kellin? Jack?" Alan calls out.

Kellin was behind the bathroom door, holding some pie. God knows why he and Jack decided to do this, it would be funny though.

Jack was across the hallway, waiting for the perfect time to throw them. Their backs were turned now, Jack counts down from 3 to 1, and then they threw the pies to the back of their heads and necks.

"What the fuck?!" Austin yells.

Kellin and Jack exits their hiding spot laughing hysterically. Alan groans in realization of what they've done. Austin grabs some of the frosting off him, goes over to Kellin and smears it on his face.

"I deserved that," He says, still smiling.

Alan copies what Austin does, "And Jack deserves that too."

"Yes, Jack does," Jack confirms.

"Did you just refer to yourself in the third person?"

Kellin knows everything's going to be okay. They've silently truced already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly, i dont even know why i named it the fraternity house even if there isn't much of a use based on the name. there's no games or anything, so i guess forget about the fact that it's a frat house and start imagining that they live together okay.


	6. Chapter 6

It has been three days since the disappearance of Josh Franceschi and Max Helyer. The police are having no luck so far.

That is, until of today.

"Shay!" Officer Kean (though he prefers to be called Matt by his co-workers) calls, "We got info."

"Gimme," Shay says like a five year old when Matt enters his office, "What've we got?"

"Okay, so he's got brown hair fringed to his right, brown eyes. According to his height, 5' 11" I'd say he's in his early twenties. We got audio on the security cameras too, and turns out he has a slight Russian accent."

"Oh," Shay replies simply.

Matt gives him this look that basically screams that Shay's supposed to know something obvious.

"What?"

"It's Denis Stoff!" He exclaims.

Shay looks at him confused for a moment before he widens his eyes in realization of who he's trying to say, "Oh shit!"

Matt throws his arms up in the air out of exasperation, "Why did we fucking hire you?"

"No idea. Go talk to people he interacts with, i'll take a look at his files."

~

Shay's in that one room in the police department where they put all of the files in. They're ordered in alphabetical order and it's aggravating because Shay cant find Denis' name anywhere.

"What the hell?!" He screams in frustration.

Then an idea comes into his mind. What if Denis has broke into here to take his files, making it harder for them to find out more about him?

"Holy shit," He says, then dashes out of the room, "Matt!"

"What?" Matt asks worriedly.

"The bastard broke in and took his files."

"We got digital copies, don't worry. I have Nicholls looking for them."

And suddenly Nicholls is running over to them, yelling something about the digital copies being missing. Shay wastes no time in running out of the building just in time to see Denis turning a corner holding his own files and something he couldn't see in his other hand. He has Matt get the cops on the street he's at to keep an eye out for him.

~

Dan decides that Oli deserves a chance. And its not like he's going to stay single for the rest of his life right?

He decides to call Oliver, "Hey," Oli says.

"Hey, where are you?" Dan asks.

"Lunch with Matt, I'll be back in around half an hour, we're almost done. Why?"

"Go out again for dinner with me?"

He laughs, "Sure, Dan. Anything for you."

Dan blushes, "I'll text you, alright? Have fun with Matt. Love you Oli."

"I love you too."

He immediately texts him.

_Lets go to barnes & noble, you'll pick a record for me and ill pick a record for you. we listen to them, then on our next date we discuss the songs :) _

_Sure baby <3_

Dan smiles to himself. Oliver can be just so goddamn sweet sometimes.

Matt grimaces at their texts, "God you guys are so gross."

Oliver rolls his eyes, "Said your single ass."

Matt then shuts up, "You didn't need to rub that in my face."

In Oli's mind, he's going like _HAH! MATT BARNES IS FUCKING SINGLE!_ , but then the next second he's like _hoe, how the fuck is he single?_

"How are you even single?"

Matt shrugs, "Haven't found the right person."

"You can be the right person. Literally, and be the right person to your soulmate."

Then something in Matt snaps, and suddenly Oli's with a very confused looking Matt Barnes.

He turns to him, "Where am I?"

Holy fuck. Matt did it.

"What's your name?" Oli asks him.

"Chris. Chris Miller. What the fuck just happened? Who are you? Hell, who am I?"

"C'mon," Oli drags him into the shop beside them.

It's a coffee shop Oli's heard of, but never been to. He orders random drinks for them and they sit down.

"Okay, so I believe you're my friend's soulmate, because as I was talking about how he hasn't ever tried switching your souls, he did it," Oli explains.

"Really? What does he look like?" Chris asks curiously.

Oli shows him a picture of Matt when they were in Dan's campus. Oli didn't even mean to take the picture, and he was going to delete it afterwards, but then it looked like a really good picture and Oli was too lazy to delete it anyway.

"I'm attracted," Chris states, "So attracted. God, he's _hot_."

"Don't give fuel to his ego," Oli mumbles.

They talk a little more. Chris asks whether he's found his soulmate or not, Oli says yes. Then he ends up rambling about how he's so in love with Dan, and Chris listens to it all anyway.

Chris is a good listener.

Oliver decides he likes Chris.

~

"Let's go somewhere." Alan offers.

Austin pauses the movie, "Where?"

Alan says the first thing that comes in his mind, "The ocean. Take me to the ocean."

"Jack, Alan and I are going out!" Austin yells to Jack, who's upstairs, "We're taking your car!"

"Jack cant hear you because he's blasting music in his room, but I'll tell him for you," Kellin answers for him.

They hear, but don't reply. Austin grabs the car keys as they both exit the house. When they get to the car, Austin turns the radio on and lets Alan pick whatever he wanted to listen to.

He guesses it really was a date then.

Along the way, they're singing along horribly to equally horrible songs and they're laughing. They're having a good time.

The excitement ends when a song from a band Austin used to be in started playing.

"Oh shit," Alan curses, "Do you wanna change it?"

"No, it's okay," Austin smiles sincerely, "It's a thing for me to occasionally listen to them. They were good friends, a good memory."

"This is not pretend, don't play the end"  
I know you're real and not just a book I read  
Soon I will show you how a heart can never fail  
Never change. 

"We were together when I wrote this song," Austin says, eyes not leaving the road for he's too embarrassed to even tell Alan this, "This One's For You. That's why I named it that."

"I know you're real, and not just a book I read. Because we met through a fucking dating website, do you remember that?" Austin laughs.

Alan laughs too, "That was a horrible way to meet your soulmate."

"Jesus Christ, I know right? I could've tried switching souls but _oh no_ I decided not to," Austin snorts humorously, "Anyway, I wrote that because I thought you were a rapist in the disguise of a cute ginger kid named Alan Ashby catfishing me for some reason."

Alan puts a hand on his heart, faking a hurt look, "I am offended by your words, Austin Robert Carlile."

"I'm sorry baby, but it was true," Austin cooes, "And then in the beginning, "I'll play the Romeo, you play the Juliet. The sun won't set, until you appear." because, well. Romeo and Juliet was pretty good wasn't it?"

"Romeo ended up dead though," Alan points out.

"Yeah, I know. But I'm like, fuck it."

"You could've used Sally and Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas!"

"Blink-182 used it already!" Austin argues back, "I Miss You? We can live like Jack and Sally if we want, when you can always find me? We'll have Halloween on Christmas, and in the night we'll wish this never end."

"Oh crap, right."

Austin laughs, and so does Alan. The radio station was having a takeover of the band, so each song had Austin screaming in it because they wanted to 'commemorate the loss of their former screamer'. Farewell To Shady Glade came on, another song Austin wrote about Alan, not that he'd say it again. Alan had secretly found out about Austin's band before and was obsessed with a bunch of their songs before Austin found out. 

He didn't get mad though, he just simply laughed and said, "Are you in love with Shayley's clean vocals or my unclean ones?" to which Alan (honestly) replied "Shayley's cleans."

Austin laughed it off.

"We're here," Austin tells him.

When they stand at the entrance of the beach, Alan notices that it is completely empty. He feels a little proud of it inside, it's like an achievement for him to catch the beach napping.

Alan cant help it, so he immediately runs down into the hot, but not too hot sand, spinning around and giggling.

He looks back at Austin and sees him still ay the entrance with an afmiring smile present on his face. Alan gestures for him to cone over with him. Austin proceeds to drop all their things and run towards the ginger kid, picking him up and spinning him around.

Austin puts him down as he presses their foreheads together, "I love you, you know?"

"I know," Alan whispers, looking at his eyes. Those brown eyes he's fallen so deeply in love with.

And then they're kissing. There's nothing sexual about it, it was just that. There wasn't much to it, but there was something. To Alan, it was nothing, and everything. Every moments like this counts, for any moment can be their last one together.

He's never going to waste another second.

Austin pulls away, "Let's make a sandcastle."

Alan punches his arm playfully, "You're like a 5 year old, honestly."

"I'm serious."

"We have no buckets or shovels."

Austin shrugs, "Then we'll do it by hand."

And he meant that literally. Because the next thing Alan knows is that Austin's at the end of the shore grabbing some wet sand and making a square foundation for te castle. He took the phrase 'sandcastle' _literally_.

Austin builds the moat, Alan starts making towers and turrets. He leaves out balconies because they're hell to make. As Alan is working on that, Austin wanders around searching for shells. He finds a pretty shell, swirled and sharp at one tip and decides take it back. He gathers a few more before deciding it's enough and coming back to Alan.

When he gets there, Alan's finished. He kneels down and lays the shells out neatly, one by one.

"We decorate it," He points to the shells.

Alan picks up the swirled one, "I'm keeping this one. It's pretty."

"I like it too," Austin says.

They start decorating the sandcastle. It wasn't much, since they just basically sticking shells into the sides of the castle in random places. But despite that, Alan was having the best time of his life, and that was enough to make Austin happy too.

~

"You know I'll never be around forever, right?" Jack asks Kellin, looking up at him as his brown eyes met Kellin's blue-green ones.

Kellin nods sadly.

"It's either I'll leave you guys to live my own life out there or I'll die young."

"Don't say that!" Kellin snaps, glaring at him, "Don't fucking say that! You're not going to die."

"I am, Kellin. I'm dying right now."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you notice that my joints and bones hurt a lot this year?" Jack asks, "I had to ask either you or Alan or Austin to massage them for me to reduce the pain."

Kellin looks at him with wide eyes, "Jack..."

They both have to face it somehow. They have to face the truth, everyone has to face the truth. There's no escaping from reality, not permanently at least.

"I have leukemia."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM SORRY


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AWAY IS THE BEST SONG EVER I
> 
> MY FAVOURITE VERSE'S DOWN THERE
> 
>  
> 
> I dreamt of climbing out to see your face  
> To scale the walls that I've put up in me.  
> 'Cause there's no solace in the pit that I've made,  
> Once the rain starts pouring in.

Kellin doesn't believe him. He doesn't want to, actually. But deep down inside he knows he believes him.

"How long have you known?" Kellin asks brokenly, voice cracking halfway.

Jack sighs, "A few months ago."

"Why didn't you tell us?"

"I didn't want you guys to worry."

"Jack we-" Kellin bursts into tears before he even finishes his sentence.

Jack doesn't waste a second in wrapping his arms around his best friend of 3 years. His best friend, his brother, his other half. He valued friendships more than he'd ever value relationships. Who's he gonna run to when Gabe manages to break him somehow? His friends. Who's he gonna go to when his family is giving him a hard time? His friends. Who's he relying on every second of the day? _His friends_. To him, no ones more important to him than his friends. He has only a year left with them, he's not wasting any of his precious time with them.

"I fucking hate you, Jack," Kellin says in between sobs, but he's still hugging him.

"You don't mean that," Jack whispers soothingly while stroking his hair.

"Leave me alone!"

"No," Jack says.

Kellin just cries harder, "Please, don't ever leave me alone."

"I'll be there in spirit, always."

And he means that last bit.

~

Gabe knows. Gabe knows his soulmate is dying. He also knows his roommate is broken because his best friend and his best friends soulmate's gone. His life is a mess and yet he always looks so happy.

That's one dangerous thing about Gabe. If he's sad, you're never gonna tell. If he's happy, you're never gonna tell. If he's angry at you even, you're not gonna tell. You cant tell, because to him, showing emotion is both showing weakness and burdening others. Burdening others because then they'll have to put up with your shit, your emotions. Those are your emotions and your responsibility, people aren't supposed to deal with them for you.

"Gabe," His sister says from the other side of the door, "Mom says dinner's ready."

"I'll be there," He responds and he hears her walk away.

He'll be there, but Jack wont.

His family knew he was with Jack, but they didn't know he was diagnosed with cancer. He doesn't want them to know, the pity they're going to give him will just make him feel worse.

They've never even met him and he's fucking dying.

What world was he living in? Hell? One where he sees his true lover slowly deteriorate inside? One where he sees his friend grow sadder and sadder everyday? One where he is physically unable to be happy because the people he cares about aren't? Life wasn't supposed it be like this. This was too much. But life would never put you through more than you can handle, Jack once told him, and that keeps him going.

"Hey mom," He says, sitting down at the dining table with his family.

"Hey sweetie," She smiles at him.

They continue on with their meal as Gabe picks at his food, taking a small bite every now and then. He isn't very hungry today, or maybe it's just because he's got a lot on his mind, or maybe both. He doesn't feel very happy, but he doesn't feel sad either. He just wants to video call Jack and then go to sleep. If this was his routine every night, he figured he'd enjoy life a little more.

He finishes whatever was on his plate though. His sister was doing the dishes tonight, so he dumps the plate into the sink and runs into his room. The first thing he does is immediately call Jack through his Skype.

Jack picks up, "Hey."

"Hey baby," Gabe smiles, "How're you?"

"M fine actually," Jack shrugs, "You?"

"Happy, seeing as I'm calling you right now."

Jack snorts humorously, "You're so cheesy."

"I know," Gabe says proudly.

He doesn't treat Jack like he's diagnosed with cancer. Gabe treats him like a normal person, because he knows Jack hates it when he's shown sympathy just because he has limited time left to live. Couldn't they be nice all along? Why wait until they're dying?

"I told Kellin," Jack says.

Gabe is interested in this, "What did he do?"

"He, uh...cried. He said he hates me, I know he doesn't mean it. He said to leave him alone, I said no. He made me promise to never leave."

"What did you say to that?"

"I said I'd be there with him in spirit, forever."

"I love you," Gabe tells him, "I love you, so much. You're the most precious thing in my life, okay?"

"I love you too."

"Where's Kellin now?"

"Asleep," Jack tells him, "On my bed."

Jack directs his laptop to show that Kellin was asleep in his shirt and sweatpants, "The sleeping beauty."

Gabe laughs, "Jesus! Cashby?"

Jack then says, "Date."

"Are you fucking kidding me."

"Nah," Jack shakes his head, "They took my car. They've left me with nothing!"

"Those two..."

"I know right."

~

"We should get back," Alan acknowledges.

Austin decides to drag the day out longer and took Alan out for dinner at a random Italian restaurant they found.

"Its like, half past 6."

"And we need about 30 minutes to get back to campus since we're _this_ far away."

Austin hums, "Okay."

~

At 7:02, Kellin and Jack recieves a call from a distressed Alan while eating chinese takeout for dinner.

"Alan?" Kellin asks immediately when he picks up the phone, "What's happening?"

Jack cant hear what they're saying but Alan's saying a bunch of gibberish as Kellin is trying to calm him down.

"We got hit by someone and I don't know what happened and then Austin's fucking gone!"

"Shit! Call the police," Kellin says, "Hold on, I'm putting you on speaker."

"Jack? Can you hear me?" Alan's voice comes through the phone.

"Loud and clear. What happened?" Jacka asks again.

"I don't know man. The cops are here, I'm in custody. They're gonna ask me shit. The car crashed."

Before Jack get's mad about his car, Alan continues, "Nothing bad, just a light scratch at the left side, front door. And maybe a small dent at the tip of the hood."

Jack isn't mad though, he's more concerned about his friends well being at this moment, "I don't care about thw damn car, I just wanna know if you're fine."

"I'm okay, worry about Austin. I think the guy who kidnapped Josh and Max isn't just after them. I think he's after everyone else."

Jack and Kellin are quiet. They try and process the information slowly, Kellin almost failing to do so.

"Why us?" Kellin asks after the silence.

"I don't know," Alan sighs, "I gotta go, they're interrogating me soon."

"Take care of yourself, okay?" Jack tells him, genuinely worried.

"I will."

The call ends and another unnerving silence settled on the air around the two.

"What does this mean?"

"They're messing with us," Kellin says, "They obviously know us, and they're gonna keep taking just one half out of the relationships we know."

Jack doesn't want to ask this question, but he ends up doing so, "Who's next?"

Kellin looks at him with terrified eyes, "He's unpredictable. It could be any of us."


	8. Chapter 8

"I've said it once, I've said it twice, I've said it a thousand fucking times, I don't know what happened!" Alan insists, getting irritated by the cops.

"But you were there?" She raises an eyebrow at him.

He sighs in frustration, "Yes."

"So you must've known what happened?"

"For Gods sake!" He yells, "The car crashed, I blacked out. I woke up and he's gone, so I called the damn police. I blacked out, you cant seem to get that through your thick fucking skull."

She looked mildly offended, "Sir, I'll have to ask you to stop using such language."

Alan rolls his eyes, "Whatever, I'm tired and my friends are worried about me, I have to get back to my campus."

Another man with a second steps in, "Let the kid go Dawn, stop nagging him would you? Highway cameras caught the crash, he's innocent, some other dude dragged him out of the car."

She looks at him, about to protest, but then she realizes he was chief executive officer, so she can't say no. She leaves the area and Alan and the two cops are alone together.

"Hi, I'm sorry about her, she's always like that, not gonna lie," The shorter one laughs, "Oh, Detective Inspector Bourget by the way." He hands out a hand to shake.

Alan accepts it, "Alan Ashby, but you probably already know that by now."

Shay's doing a proper interrogation now. All Matt has to do is stand there.

"Yeah. Anyway, do you have any idea who would try and do this?"

Alan shakes his head, "No, I don't know anyone that I've recently pissed off to be honest. Austin's always with ms, and if he isn't, he would've told me about it if something happened."

"Soulmate?"

Alan hums in approval.

"Oh. Sweet," Shay mumbles, since he's never really had a soulmate.

"Do you know who it is?"

Shay looks up at him from his papers on the clipboard, "Um, yeah. We have an idea of who it is at least."

"Am I, uh, like...allowed to know their name or something?"

"No, actually," He hesitates a moment before saying this, "I'm going to tell you anyway. You deserve to know, and I've never really liked following rules."

Alan decides this was the good guy in the scene.

"We have just enough proof to believe its Denis Stoff, a kidnapper slash murderer we released because we didn't have enough proof it was him. He was the same guy who kidnapped two recent people, Josh Franceschi and Max Helyer from the college close to yours."

"Yeah, I heard. I have a friend there. You interrogated him too. But just asking, what if we don't have enough proof that its him this time?"

"We'll make sure that doesn't happen," Shay smiles reassuringly, "For now, you can go home. You're proven innocent, and...I'll update you on shit okay? I just need your email or something."

After Alan gives him his email (just for the sake of being updated on how Austin was), he gets a ride home from Shay as Matt told him he'd stay in the scene. There's no awkward tension in the 67 Chevy Impala **(A/N FUCK)** he drove, they had a friendly conversation about music, one of the only things both of them really understood.

"Thanks man," Alan says, getting out of the car.

"No problem. You'll hear from me soon."

"DID YOU FUCKING CHEAT ON AUSTIN?!" Kellin is heard from outside yelling angrily at Alan within the house.

"What the fuck," Shay says.

"It's my friends," Alan groans, "I'll go."

"Yeah, you should."

Alan shuts the door. As Shay drives away, he's greeted by an angry Kellin and a disappointed Jack.

Its like Kellin's the furious mother and Jack's the dad-you're-not-helping father and he came home an hour late or something.

"I didn't cheat," Alan raises his hands in defense, "That's the D.I working on Josh, Max and now Austin's case. He gave me a ride, 's all."

Kellin's eyes softened, "Thank god. After all the shit that happened, I thought you were just going to add fuel to the fire."

"I didn't though," He laughs humourlessly at the end.

And then Kellin goes to serious mode, "Yeah, we have to talk."

Alan feels his heart drop because this is _exactly_ what Kellin says if he's in trouble or if something bad happened.

After all this, what's going to be worse?

"Okay..." Alan takes a seat at their dining table.

It's like a proper serious chat with your angry parents late at night.

"Jack is..." Kellin looks at said person for confirmation. Jack nods, "This is huge, okay? Jack has leukemia, stage 2."

There are a million things running through Alan's mind right now. Literally, he cant latch onto one though, it was like his whole memory history was flashing right before his eyes (he wasn't dying) and he can catch a few glimpses of them.

Alan gets up and leaves the room.

He locks himself in his room for the rest of the night, and Kellin and Jack made the decision that he just needed some space and time.

Alan didn't cry like Kellin did, he pulled his shit together. He didn't do a very good job of it though, the rest of the night, he's staring at his ceiling.

He thinks about Jack, he thinks about whoever his soulmate was, how much he felt bad for them since their soulmate died at such a young age. Maybe Austin was going to die too, and then he'd be in the same position as Jack's soulmate.

What would happen to him if Jack died? What would happen to him if Austin died too? Would he be alone? Kellin's going to move in with Vic, and if he asks to live with them, he'd feel bad for the rest of his life. Maybe he doesn't have a future. Maybe he was supposed to die too now.

 _Don't do anything stupid_ , Austin's voice rang through his head.

Right after that, he receives a notification that an email was sent to him, it was from D.I Bourget.

 **To: Alan Ashby**  
From: Shayley Bourget  
_So Austin doesn't have any immediate family members does he? We researched about his parents a little and found that she knew Anna Stoff, Denis' mother. Did you know anything about that?_

He decides to write back.

 **To: Shayley Bourget**  
From: Alan Ashby  
_Hi. I'm glad you sent me that at this exact moment of time, I was about to do something stupid. Anyway, his parents are gone. His mom died when he was 17 of Marfan Syndrome and his dad died two years ago, but I figure you'd know that by now. I didn't know he was ever friends with anyone named Denis, he's never told me anything about it._

What else could Austin have his from him?

He decides to go through his drawers. On the first one, he finds a bunch of papers. Schoolwork. There was nothing there. When he got to the third drawer though, it got a little more interesting.

There was a small wooden box. Alan picks it up and find that it barely made a noise at all. There's a key to it, and his mind is immediately thrown to that one time he saw Austin hide a small key in the tube in his tape dispenser.

He picks up said item and removes the tape roll from the tube. There was a key in it, small and golden with a unique head.

Alan, now satisfied, unlocked the box. Inside it was a small, neatly folded piece of paper so it was small enough to fit the box. He unfolds it to see some familiar, messy handwriting scrawled across the page. He reads it.

_Alan, I know you'd find this soon enough. When I hid the key, I knew you saw. So when you went to camp with Oli and Kellin, Jack and I wrote you this._

_I've known he had leukemia ever since he first found out. Also when you were at camp. His bones in his leg started hurting really badly he could barely even walk. I drove him to the hospital, and then he knew. We knew._

_I'm so sorry for hiding so much from you baby. I didn't want to put the weight of this on you since it affected my mental health a lot. I went to see a psychiatrist, to see if something severe happened to me. I was depressed, they put me on anti-depressants. If you look in my closet, in the midst of my sweaters, you'll see a small orange bottle, that's it. That's my pills._

_I'm so sorry. I truly am. I should have told you sooner._

_(I thought I would end the letter there, but now, something new has recently happened and you deserve an explanation to it before it's too late.)_

_I used to be friends with this guy named Denis. I moved from Ohio to Orange County after second grade, do you remember when I told you that? He's out to get revenge on me. I don't know why, he's going to do something really bad. He's got Josh Franceschi and Max Helyer because he knew Dan's soulmate was Oli. He knew we were friends with Oli, so he made it seem unclear for the first parts. He might go for me next, I don't know. It's complicated right now, I just want you to not get hurt, especially by him, okay?_

_If he gets me, I want you to take Kellin and Jack and go to Gabe's place. You might not know who he is right now, but tell Jack this. He'll know where to go. If he finds me, he'll have hold of my ID, i had the frat house set as my address, so that's his next target. Take this letter with you so that if he gets in, he wont find it, and he wont know where to look next. Pack your things now, don't waste any time. He might be going there now, so whatever time it is (note that I don't care if it's midnight, this is more important) I want you to go now. Gabe's house, remember that. his parents are going on a business trip if it's the 8th of June when you're reading this, their flight left at the 7th so the house is clear._

_Please baby, get out of there. I'll be fine, just get out. Now._

_\- Austin_

_Stay emotionless_

Alan grabs a bag and starts packing. He doesn't have a lot of things, so he packed fairly quickly.

"Kellin! Jack! Go pack your things, we're leaving!" He yells and his voice echoes throughout the house.

It was once a home, warm and full of light, but now, all that it was are four walls and a roof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I CANT FUCKING BELIEVE JACK FUCKING FOWLER IS TAKEN IM SO MAD BUT SO HAPPY FOR HIM RN FUCJ


	9. Chapter 9

Alan's told Shay that they could stay for about 2 months. He decides it'll be enough time for them to solve this case.

"We should go see Anna," Matt suggests.

"Sure, when, where?"

"Uh, she's over at 216 Street, that's at least 5 miles away, so we could head there now," Matt tells him.

Shay 'okay's that and then they're leaving.

~

"This place looks like it hasn't had anyone live in it for a century," Matt comments.

"Well the archives are never wrong. We update them like every second."

"True."

The two heads to the front porch. They ring the bell and a lady in her mid 30s at least opens the door.

"Hi, how can I help you?" She asks politely.

"Hello ma'am. I'm Officer Kean and this is Detective Inspector Bourget, we'd just like to ask you a few questions regarding your son, Denis Stoff?"

The smile fades from her face, "I suppose it'll be fine."

She makes way for them to enter her house. She offers them tea while they take a seat in the living room. They decline. If her son would be capable of doing these things, what could she do?

"So, he ran away when he was 15? With his father?"

"Yes," She sighs, "The two left at midnight, while I was asleep. They left nothing, they only packed a few things, the rest they left behind."

"Do you have any idea where they might have headed?"

"No," She says, disheartened.

Something flashes through her eyes, and her expression changes to an afraid one in mere seconds.

"Um, ma'am, are you alright?"

"I'm not," She says, unable to maintain eye contact, eyes still wide in fear, "He threatened me."

"Who?" Shay asks.

"The both of them. They came back one night and threatened me not to tell. I followed them the night before, they knew."

"Where were they?"

"An abandoned warehouse, in the outskirts of town."

That was enough, and they turn to leave. She reluctantly does, since then she'll be alone once again, defenseless in this house, rotting right before her eyes in time.

"She'll be fine," Shay tells him.

"I hope so."

The rest of the drive was silent except for when Shay requests for back a few more people over. It was mildly awkward, despite the fact that the two were pretty close.

When they get there, it was creepier than the house. It was 6 at night, and it was dark. Backup came sooner than expected, the two were more than relieved to see that there were at least 4 more guys with them.

"There," Matt points to the only building visible.

Inside it was something that used to be a base. There's a table in the corner with a lot of ripped up paper and an unfinished cup of some black substance that's been there for God knows how long.

Shay picks the papers up. There's writing, but one that catches is eye was the one with pictures. It was him with another guy, long, curly, brown hair down to his chin. They were soulmates, as Shay could tell from the way they acted with each other. There was a disc, he takes that and hides it in his pocket for later evidence for whatever. Shay recognized the guy in the pictures, it was the guy who turned himself in for the murder of Alex Gaskarth. They caught the criminal, but they couldn't find the body. So he had been here on his last kill? Where was the body?

That question was soon answered when one cop opened a door and he made a gagging noise that echoed throughout the whole building. Shay turns around to see that there was a badly mutilated corpse that's been there for quite a long time. He felt bad for not finding the poor guy sooner.

After they've cleared the place, Shay has the department contact any of his relatives and have them gather for his funeral. He deserved one, the man was innocent.

"We should talk to Bruce," Matt suggests.

"He's in isolation," Shay states.

"So?" Matt challenges.

Shay sighs as he realizes this is not going to end well if he doesn't say yes. So he turns on the engine of this car and he proceeds to drive there. Besides, visiting hours were on until 9, and it was only half past 7, so they had time to get there.

~

"Cassells, I need to speak with Benjamin Bruce," Matt says to James, the guy behind the desk.

"He's in-"

"I bloody well know he's in isolation, and I also bloody well know I'm chief, so would you just shut your bleeding pie hole and let me get there?" He snaps.

Okay, Matt Kean is now angry.

Some guy in a cell down the hall apparently heard the conversation and yelled 'OOOOOOOH SHOTS FIRED!!' at them, followed by a distant 'wait, the chief is here?'. James yells at the guy to shut up as he rummages through his drawers to find the key to the interrogating room.

~

"Don't let him get to you," Matt warns before Shay enters.

He gives him a reassuring smile before stepping in a dangerous room, with an equally dangerous man in it.

"I haven't seen you in a long time, Detective," Ben smirks as Shay takes a seat across him.

Shay rolls his eyes, "Cut the bullshit, Ben."

"You know, I don't think I need these," He lifts his wrists, referring to the handcuffs that bound him to the desk, "Could you take them off for me?"

"Yes, you do need those, and no, I cannot take them off for you," Shay answers, "Whatever. Anyway, remember Denis Stoff?"

Ben is greatly affected by this question. H e looks down at his shoes and mumbles, "Yeah."

"You been switching souls with him lately?"

And Shay expects him to snap at him because it's so obvious that they've inserted the serum that prevents soul switching into him, but that's not what he got. Ben is sensitive on the topic of Denis, and Shay knows that. He doesn't take advantage of it, he wasn't that kind of person who used other people's weaknesses.

"No, they've inserted the serum into me, remember?" He says softly.

"Yeah, I'm sorry, that was stupid of me to ask. Okay, he's the suspect of 3 kidnappings, Joshua Franceschi, Max Helyer, and Austin Carlile. Heard of any of them?"

"Yeah, that Carlile guy. He and Denis were childhood friends or something. And then shit happened and then Austin left. He told me about getting revenge on him one day," Ben explains.

So it was true.

"Yeah, we figured out most of that. But why did he take Austin himself, why not take his soulmate and watch him suffer?"

"Because soulmates emotions affected the other," He says seriously, "If he took Austin, he's going to grow sadder everyday because he's convinced he's going to die. It affects his soulmate, so it's the same thing. Denis is getting revenge by haunting Austin with the thought that his soulmate was growing weaker. Because of who? Because of himself. Denis has wicked and twisted ways of mentally torturing the people he kidnaps, keep that in mind, Detective."

"Yeah, I'll be sure to do so. Ideas where he might've gone?"

Ben stays silent for a while, thinking of possible answers to that, "I've been to this abandoned church he likes to go to. It's a long way from his house, like 25 miles or so. We hid there a lot, and when I wake up in the middle of the night, he's not beside me. I find him downstairs drawing some sort of pentagram on the floor. When I asked him what he was doing, he brushed it off, and we didn't talk about it. I didn't want to anyway."

"You weren't involved?"

"I mean, sure I'm an atheist, but goddamn do pentagrams freak me out."

And then for a second, the thought that if Ben wasn't a criminal, he and Shay would've made really good friends crossed Shay's mind.

"Okay. I'm done here. It was actually nice seeing you again, you helped a lot, unless you were lying of course," Shay adds at the end.

"You know you can trust me, Detective."

"Hopefully I'll see you in 3 years when you get out."


	10. Chapter 10

It's been 2 days since they've set up camp outside the church. Denis hasn't made any move to show himself. Shay was getting sick of having to cook everything over a fire or eat cold, canned shit. Besides, it was mid fall already, it was freezing to sleep outside, in a tent even!

"I hope he arrives soon," Shay tells Matt, approaching him where he was by the fire.

"I hope he doesn't," Matt admits.

"Why?"

Matt doesn't reply. He just stares at him. Matt gets lost in his own thoughts. He forgets what he was going to say, and he's stuck staring at Shay's eyes. He's just mentally going on and on about how pretty and blue he's always found them. He just wished he could tell someone exactly what he was saying in his mind.

"Matt," Shay snaps his fingers.

Matt blinks, then hums in response, acting as if he never zoned out. Matt goes back to watching the fire, but his mind is somewhere else.

Shay looks at him weirdly. Matt was acting weird.

He's come to know Matt as this Northern head chief of an American police department but he's never viewed him as a normal person. Paying taxes, cooking or ordering food (Shay's been over to his place, and Matt can cook pretty well), doing the laundry or other things 'normal' people did. But then again, nobody is considered normal. To other humans, our flaws would be physical or mental. Some of us would supposedly be too tall or too short. Or too ugly, or too fat even. Words like those that people say that will bring down the confidence of others. Humans are selfish, they only care about themselves. To aliens, we'd be the aliens. They weren't normal in what we call 'alien's eyes. We were the aliens in their eyes. We're the foreign planet they're visiting to gather samples and do experiments on them. Just like us to their home planet.

Humans are dangerous creatures. One of the most dangerous, actually. We kill everything we don't understand. They see a new kind of animal, or flower, they either kill it or treat it like some sort of _highly contagious disease_. They're going to put it in containment or quarantine and then they're going to study them like some sort of _rabid animal_ and then they do the experiments on it. Whether it kills them or not, they don't care. Trial and error, they say. If the creature dies, they wouldn't release the news to the world, but if it did work, then they'd broadcast it everywhere, _all just to prove that they were smart_.

"You keep zoning out," Shay acknowledges.

"Just thinking," Matt mumbles.

Shay doesn't believe him.

~

Kellin cant trust Jack anymore.

Jack Fowler, the person who he used to rely on so many times. The person who'd been there for him when no one else was. When everyone else's heads were in their asses and they didn't care about what they said to anyone, Jack was there.

Jack was always there.

Kellin cant help but realize that once Jack is gone, he'll have no one. Absolutely no one. He and Vic are in a long distance relationship, because Vic's literally in Mexico. He cant keep running to him and relying on the internet about his problems. Alan's going to be busy with his own work and possibly Austin, Kellin doesn't want to intervene on that.

Kellin had always been alone, hasn't he?

He's confused and lost. He woke up way too early today. The day seems to be dragged out longer, and he cant focus on anything any of his friends say. He's frustrated at the end of the day when he's in his room in Gabe's house because _what the hell was bothering him so much it deprived him from his daily activities?_

He's even lucky enough school was closed, or he'd be dead by now.

He lies down on the bed and tries going to sleep. He's already lost two hours to waking up too early, and now he's going to retrieve them.

Alan isn't home, Jack and Gabe are out to get Jack a check up, then they're going to go grab a few stuff from the grocery store.

Kellin feels a pang of worry shoot through his chest. He decides to play some music to try and relieve it somehow.

He plays Mayday Parade's Miserable at Best starts playing and it certainly isn't helping at all. He's too lazy to get up and change it though, so he just lies down and tries to turn the pain into solace somehow.

It isn't working.

It ends though, and Kellin's never been more thankful.

But then another slow, soft Mayday Parade song comes on and Kellin silently curses himself for making the majority of his music library Mayday Parade songs. He picks his phone up and changes the song. A song he doesn't recognize comes on, but then he realizes this is Jack's favourite song.

It's a prettty old song by Mayday Parade too, but Jack loves it so much and Kellin's brain is literally programmed to never change the song whenever this song is on.

_If you're letting go_  
_Let me go slowly_  
_If you're letting go_  
_Lay me down softly_

He might never let Jack go. Not entirely at least. To him, Jack will always be there in spirit, always.

Kellin's never met Josh, but that's exactly what he liked saying. If he couldn't be somewhere he really wanted to, he'd tell the person that he'd be there in spirit, because when Josh was younger, he had this performance thing that his mom couldn't go to. So the last thing she told him before she got into a car accident trying to get there and moved on to the afterlife was that she'd be there with him in spirit. Always.

And that's what made it Josh's favourite phrase to say, and it also made 'always' his favourite word. He liked the thought of something being permanent; not changing. Although he's never gonna really admit it, he's never liked change. The idea that something has to be different both scared him and frustrated him. Because he's always happy with how things were, and if something changed, it would mean that he'd probably be less happy with it like that.

~

Denis has killed Max.

The guy didn't even have a reason to fucking kill him. He just walks in the room he kept them captive in and Max took a bullet to the head. Denis exits the room without a word, leaving Josh a broken, sobbing mess as Austin does everything he can to calm him down, because he knows what its like to lose someone you loved so much. He's felt it before and he doesn't want anyone else to feel that way because it's the worst feeling you could ever go through.

As Josh is crying on the floor over Max, Austin's hugging him tight from behind, just trying and trying to help Josh so that he wouldn't feel as hurt as he is now. It's not working, obviously, because everyone would've broken down if someone they loved had died right in front of their eyes.

Josh stops trying to escape Austin's embrace. He gets tired and gives up, so he buries his face into Austin's chest and continues with sobbing. Josh doesn't want Austin to die because of Denis now, if they're never going to be saved, Austin is all that he has left, and he'd rather die with him than be the last one standing. As his head is on his chest, he can hear his heartbeat and that calm Josh down a little because he knows Austin's alive and well.

Austin wants to cry, but he cant. He has to stay strong for Josh. Josh losing Max was almost the same as him losing his mom all those years ago. It was on the same level of pain and Austin just wants to cry with Josh, listening to how _broken and sad_ he sounded.

"Don't leave me," Josh manages to get out between breaths.

It's an empty promise, but he'll try the best he can to make it true, "I won't."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DONT KNOW HOW THIS STARTED OUT AS A STUPID SOULMATE COLLEGE FANFIC IDEA INTO THIS ONE BIG MYSTERY TRILOGY I HAVE ALL PLANNED OUT


	11. Chapter 11

"Do you ever wonder," Kellin starts, "Why the hell life has to be so hard?"

Alan thinks of it for a while, then replies, "Well, no. Not really. I mean, everything happens for a reason, right? So we just gotta let it happen."

"But it doesn't make sense?" Kellin argues, "Why put us through hell, but then never pull us out again? It's not fair."

"We'll be back on the surface one day, I'll promise you that.

"Yeah, if we don't get killed first," He mutters under his breath. Alan doesn't hear.

They're quiet as they continue to stare up at the sky while lying down on the soft grass. Somewhere above their heads, Alan's phone is playing songs from Austin's old band and Mayday Parade. There was no sound apart from their breathing, the distant sounds of crickets and music.

"Life is confusing," Alan states in a matter of factly tone, "Like, when you die, you go to heaven, and heaven's _forever_. Like, what is forever? If it literally has no end, then what are we going to do in forever? Do we age? What is there for us to do? Because we cant just die again cant we?"

It's Kellin's turn to think of it. It does confuse him a lot, because he cant answer those questions. No one can, it's only answered when you experience death, but when you experience it, you cant tell anyone about it because you're dead and you cant come back.

"I don't know...what to say," Kellin finally replies.

"If I were you, I wouldn't either to be honest."

And then they're quiet again.

What the hell are they doing? They're outside wasting their precious time right now while Jack is literally dying in time, Austin is kidnapped and probably dead too. Alan doesn't feel very well anymore

"What are we doing?" Alan whispers softly, finally breaks the silence.

"I..." Kellin drifts off, not even bothering to finish his sentence.

Alan gets up, "Let's go back inside."

Kellin starts to get up. Alan grabs his phone off the ground and turns the music off. They walk back to the house together in silence. Kellin grabs the spare key under the flowerpot on the right side of the door frame and unlocks the door. After being in the cold fall air outside for so long, they both are relieved to finally be greeted by the warm air of the house.

"Y' alright?" Gabe asks, peeking his head out the door upstairs.

"We're fine," Alan says back.

Gabe is nice, he decides. He likes Gabe.

~

Dan is alone.

He's in his apartment when the realization that Josh and Max might even be dead now strikes him. 

"You were meant to live," He whispers to no one in particular.

He swears he hears a voice in the wind whispering softly in his ear, "So were you."

Was he? Did he deserve to be in Josh or Max's place right now? Would all of this be different if he had just hid in the tech lab room with them?

Maybe he isn't supposed to be alive right now.

Dan walks over to the kitchen and grabs a small peeling knife. It's blade is short, but dangerously sharp. He drags his finger along the tip of the blade and pricks himself a little. He barely winces as the cold water touches his skin and cleans the small wound. There's barely any blood, that dissatisfies him.

He takes the same knife off the counter and drags it across his wrist once. It stings, since he's never done this before, but the pain feels almost relieving as he splits his skin again.

What was he doing?

He stops before he can get further. Two is already too much. He washes the knife and puts it away. Then he cleans his wrist to rid the blood off of it. He grabs a small bottle of iodine liquid and spreads it over the cuts. If he's going to prevent himself from dying, then he might as well start repairing himself before he breaks himself even more. If you say you're okay, you're going to be okay.

"I'm sorry," He says into the wind, hoping it will carry his words to his two best friends.

He was too quiet, as the words just got lost in time.

~

"Shay!" Matt slaps said person across the face, "Fucking focus, will you? Did you even hear a word I said?"

Shay just looks at him, too afraid to respond.

Mat rolls his eyes, then shakes his head and sighs at him. He walks away, muttering curses under his breath.

Shay feels guilty.

How does he make it up to Matt?

They've got approximately 5 other guys with them in the base. They're all gathered by the fire, talking to one another.

Shay turns around to see a pair or bright headlight pull up into the driveway of the church.

He lets out a long, amused 'oooohhh' before jumping up off the ground and sprinting to the rest.

"He's here," Shay tells them both nervous and excited for some action to finally happen.

"Fucking finally!" Matt exclaims.

Shay knows he's not going to be ignored tonight.

While Matt is telling the rest and giving them instructions of tonight's procedures, Shay puts out the fire and is also watching as Denis drags Austin and Josh out of the truck, shoving them into the creepy old building.

"They're in, we gotta go," Shay calls out to them.

Matt proclaims a loud 'are you bloody kidding me?!' before kicking a stray empty can in frustration.

"Wait for us! How the hell does he move so fast?" He asks, semi-rhetorically.

The backup cops just looked at one another.

"Don't answer that," Matt dismisses with a wave of his hand, "We're moving. Let's go."

The next few minutes fly by like seconds. The next thing they know is that they're opening the church doors to be met by a terrifying setting in front of their eyes.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS BOOK IS ALMOST ENDING NOOOOOOO

Matt's jaw dropped. The fucking kid was a satanist.

They're no where to be seen, but the neatly carved pentagram on the floor was more than obvious. So we're the upside down crosses, fallen statue of Jesus and ripped religious paintings.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Shay tells him.

"Don't show weakness," Is all Matt says in return.

After Matt signals for the backup cops to wait outside, Shay is walking down the middle lane, right between the rows of seats looking left and right for anything.

"He couldn't have just disappeared," Matt says.

"Pretty damn obvious, isn't that?" Shay mutters. Matt doesn't hear.

The floorboards creak eerily as they walk on them. It's an old building, Shay reminds himself, it's bound to make some noise.

When he tries taking another step, he can't. It's like his foot is blocked by some invisible force and he can't take another step forward. Shay looks at the ground and he's standing on a recognizable, circular figure; the pentagram.

Denis had activated it, and now he was stuck? What was he going to do to him? Make his Lucifer's vessel? That sounded stupid, but it might be true.

Matt sees him and realizes why he isn't moving, "Shay...you're standing on a-"

Matt doesn't finish his sentence, and all that Shay does is look at him with terrified eyes that practically screams 'help'.

"I'll get you out by the end of this, don't worry," Matt reassures him.

Shay gives him an unsure nod.

Then Denis is seen at the back of the building. He outstretched his arm and the front doors slam shut. The repetitive banging from the backup cops outside are heard, but they can't do anything. This was a satanist's power they were challenging.

"What do you even want with those kids?" Matt spits at him with disgust, "And where's Max?"

"I got rid of him," Denis says simply, and then grins maliciously, "He would've made a pretty good vessel for Balthazar, but...I'd rather see his soulmate suffer."

The little shit was challenging Matt's temper.

"Matt!" Shay yells at him, "Don't let him get inside your head, the kid's good at that!"

_Don't let him get inside your head._

"Look, I don't know what you want, but please, just let them go. They still have so much ahead of them, they don't deserve this."

Denis glares at him, "Oh yeah? What about what they've done in the past, huh? What about all the shit Carlile put me through? This is revenge, for everything everyone's done to me."

Denis points to Shayley, "He's the vessel."

Matt's blood runs cold at that, "No! Take me! Just let him go!"

"Matt-"

"No, shut the fuck up," Matt snaps, "I've been too hard on you kid, you deserve so much more. I don't."

"Yes you do you idiot! Everyone does!" Shay yells at him angrily, "All this bullshit you're saying means nothing, we're making it out alive together. The four of us."

The doors stopped banging, Matt is thinking. Everything around him seems to fade and become a mere blur. He's thinking hard. Life. Death. Life is difficult, yet exciting, but Death is peaceful, but bland. Matt is torn, but he chooses life. He snaps back into reality, swiftly pulls his gun out and fires a bullet at Denis.

It hits his shoulder. Once the pentagram activator is weakened, so will the pentagram. Shay breaks free easily and he quickly hides behind one of the rows of chairs. Matt does the same and he ducks just as Denis is whipping out his own weapon. It's much better than their shitty handguns, of course, but it doesn't always mean they'll lose. Matt's got Shay and Shay's got Matt. All Denis has is his blind faith in Lucifer.

~

Dan's walking in the streets when he starts having The Feeling again. This time, it was worse than any other ones he's had. He collapses onto the pavement, clutching his chest and it's hard to breathe. A few people around him gasps and calls 911, ignoring his pleas as he tries to stop them from calling the paramedics. The pain has weakened him greatly though, he doesn't even have the energy to get up and give more effort in trying to stop them.

When they come, Dan's explaining to them while attempting to try and breath properly. One of the staff gets it, but they rush him to the hospital anyway, in case it was something more serious than that, like heart failure or something. It could've easily led to death.

"Take deeps breaths, okay?" One of the paramedics say, "Even out your breathing, try to relax. Think of happy things, don't panic."

Dan thinks of Josh immediately, and it helps a little. Then his mind is off to Oliver, Kellin, Alan, Austin, Jack, Gabe. A few of his only friends in this world. They make him happy. The heart monitor beeps at a steady pace and then they know Dan's going to be just fine. They gave him a checkup in the hospital, and thankfully, he's healthy. One thing that still worries him though...

Why did he get The Feeling?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ive planned a sequel. there's a teaser in my works, it's called 'cold war'


	13. Chapter 13

They've pissed Denis off, that's for sure. They can practically feel his anger radiating out of him throughout the whole building. Then he makes this loud, inhuman noise that echoes throughout the whole church and bothered every single system in Matt's body. He isn't afraid though, so he gestures for Shay to get his gun out.

There's a pounding noise from where Denis was. They didn't know what was making it, all they knew was that the ground was shaking because of it. Shay grabs his gun and turns the safety off. Matt runs for the door and Shay diverts Denis' attention. The plan works, as Matt manages to get the door opened and Denis hasn't noticed at all.

Now Shay is fucked. The place wasn't that big, and there weren't many hiding spots, but enough to last until Matt comes back.

Unless, of course, he's forced to kill Denis.

He cant do that. Ben would _kill_ him. Even though Shay's fully aware Ben's a very dangerous man, he likes the guy since 1, he has a weak spot and Shay can trust him because of that, and 2, every time they'd talk, it would be scarily casual. Even the cops monitoring them from behind the 2 way mirror were surprised as to how close he was to Ben. Especially since Shay is a cop (and the one who arrested him even) and he's a criminal. They'd say that Ben never acted so nice towards any other cop before but him or Matt. Shay feels a little special, but he knows better than to let his guard down.

Shay hides behind a pillar, back against it. Denis didn't see him; he actually has a chance of surviving!

_Matt, just please hurry._

His prayers aren't answered though, as the pillar next to him is broken in half by an invisible force. He's forced to move to a new hiding spot. That wasn't going to happen tonight. It's going to be either he dies, or Denis dies, there's no in between. This is proven as Denis lights a line of fire right in front of where Shay was running off to, blocking his path.

"Fuck," He curses, grabbing his gun which safety is still off, "You have a chance at living, just tell me where the two are."

Denis grins wickedly, "You'll never find them."

"So be it."

Ben is going to lose his trust in him, but he doesn't care anymore. Denis was a threat to the whole world and if they only put him behind bars, God knows how he'll escape but he will. They'll have to finish him off.

Shay fires, it hits his leg. Denis howl in pain, but then gets up anyway. He's been possessed, that's where he was getting all these powers and strength from. Shay fires again, it doesn't hit him at all.

Fuck, how did he pass the shooting range test again?

Denis is lashing out at him. He takes a good few seconds in aiming before pulling the trigger. It hits him right in the hear and a makeshift explosion throws him to the ground behind him. Denis is dead.

He's done it.

But he feels different. Suddenly, without him telling his body to even do anything, he gets up. His heart rate is supposed to speed up by now since he's practically afraid of what was happening right now, but it wasn't. It stayed normal.

"Holy shit, Shay, you're okay!" Matt exclaims, running over to him, "I heard the gunshots. It's okay, you did the right thing, killing him."

"Yeah," He (not really him) says, voice wavering, "He's dead."

"The others are going to come soon, let's go find the kids."

Matt doesn't give him any time to reply before he's already running into the building. Yes, it was on fire. Yes, he (or the demon inhabiting him) had caused it. The demon was going to act like Shay. To trick his next victim into thinking he was someone else while it was all a trap from the beginning. Shay cant do anything, he just wishes someone would figure it out and get the fucker out of him as soon as possible.

Shay gets in the church too. In the midst of the fires and burning ruins, he sees Matt escorting the two college students out. They were all separated, so that if someone got hurt, it would only be one person and not two. The demon - Balthazar - watches and maps out every little thing Matt does. Each step, his way of thinking, _everything_. He knew he was going to need it to find out his weak spots to get away about what he was about to do.

They all run out and the cops are there with firefighters and paramedics. The paramedics are immediately checking both Josh and Austin for any signs of pain or injury. They're completely fine, and that puts Matt at ease.

"They're both okay," He says to Shay (Balthazar), "Thank God. Their friends and families must be so worried."

Balthazar hums in agreement as he doesn't really know what to say. He's never been involved in mortal events, so he's clueless. All he knows is that he was supposed to make Austin's life a living hell, just like Denis wanted.

"You okay?" Matt asks worriedly.

"Fine," Shay answers.

Matt eyes him weirdly, but lets it pass. They've put out the fire already, now they're just checking to see if the whole building was clear. It is. They retrieved Denis' body from the ground and planned to bury him. Now the hardest part of this was telling Ben.

Shay was fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> going on a break for a little while...


	14. Chapter 14

"You've really got the fucking nerve, giving me the cold shoulder, Dan," Josh snarls.

Dan's still silent, typing away on his laptop.

"This is stupid," Josh sighs, "What did I do? I did nothing, of course. I just came back from being abducted for like, two three weeks."

Dan visibly freezes, but then he slightly slouches back in his seat and continues typing. Josh just stares at him.

He stops abruptly, "It's my fault."

"What?"

"Y'know, if I had been with you that night at the tech lab, all this probably wouldn't have happened."

"Dan-"

He turns around to look at him seriously, "Josh, this is my fault."

Josh furrows his eyebrows at him, "Is not. How is it your fault? You're not the one fucking kidnapping me. You're not the one who killed Max. This isn't your fault. I don't understand how you could possibly say that..."

Dan turns back to his laptop, "I was so stupid."

"Hey," Josh snaps, "Don't say that. You aren't stupid, Dan. If you were, I'd probably have left the room by now. But guess what, I'm _still here_. Why? Because you're my best friend you foul git, and you're one of the only people I have left. So _please_ , don't leave."

Dan turns to face him again. They stare at each other like that for a while, until Dan slowly walks towards Josh and they both hug each other for a good 2 minutes.

~

Everything was back to normal now. School's continued, no one is hurt, and justice has been served.

Except, for course, for Shay.

To be fair, it wasn't that obvious that he hadn't been himself ever since after he shot Denis. Everyone thought he had minor PTSD or something, but for someone who payed enough attention and cared about him enough could easily tell the difference. Someone like Matt.

Matt knows. He always knows. You cant ever hide anything from Matt Kean because he's got eyes and ears everywhere. There's a drug dealer like 15 miles away, he knows. There's a robbery in the grocery store downtown, he knows. There's a kid being kidnapped and the car is on I-91 West, he _knows_. There's no hiding anything from him, basically.

The first day Shay visits Matt at his house after the possession, it's a little too obvious Shay wasn't exactly himself. Matt decides to play along for a while, wondering if the demon actually bought his act.

"Uh, where's the bathroom?" He asks, "I kinda forgot where it is."

Matt squints his eyes at him, but tells him anyway, "Down the hall on your left. You've been here so many times?"

"Yeah," Shay awkwardly scratches the back of his neck, "I...forgot."

He rushes off down the hallway, leaving Matt stunned and confused. He thought it would've been able to access his mind and memories, but apparently not.

This partially worries Matt, but also relieves him. It's a good thing that people would be able to tell that something was off with him, but then the more people who knew, the more trouble and rumours there will be.

Matt wasn't looking forward to that, so he grabs some salt and lines the bathroom doorway with it. Shay cant possibly get out of that?

Unless, of course, demons can bloody walk through walls.

~

"Alan!" Austin yells throughout the house, dragging out the n in his name.

"What!" Alan snaps.

"Please make me sandwich!"

"Can you just get your ass up here instead of yelling from the first floor to the second!" Kellin yells back.

"Aye! Look who's talking!" Alan says in a fake Australian accent.

Kellin mutters curses under his breath as he continues with what they're doing. Alan goes down to the kitchen to actually make Austin a sandwich since he's a nice boyfriend.

He feels two strong, yet lanky arms wrap around his waist, "Hi."

Alan smiles and looks back at Austin, kissing him, "Hey."

"Ew," Kellin grimaces and scrunches up his nose in disgust, "Get a room."

"Says the guy who's had skype sex with his Mexican boyfriend before,' Austin shoots back.

"OH! SHOTS FUCKING FIRED, BITCH!"Alan screams, slamming the last piece of bread on the now finished sandwich.

Kellin, once again, mutters curses at them under his breath, "I'm going out. We don't have anymore eggs, milk and bread apparently."

Alan glances at their bread stock, "Confirmed. I need coffee, so I'm coming. Aust?"

"I'm...just gonna stay home," Austin says, "Get some tuna too by the way."

Kellin and Alan both understood that he was still afraid of going out of the house after the whole kidnapping thing, so they say 'okay' to that, and drove to the grocery store.

Jack was in his room. He hadn't felt any pain in his bones or joints for quite a long time, and he was worried all the pain he hadn't felt will one day come crashing down on him. He ignores the faint sense of dread though, because now, his soulmate, his friends, and everyone he cares about it safe, and there's nothing better that he can ask for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this concludes the end of down the road :) thank you to the 100+ of you who've taken the time to read my shitty writing.


End file.
